Free Press and Free Press Action work to amplify the voices of people and communities in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities. We work at the intersection of media and technology to strengthen our democracy, while creating the way to a just and abundant media future.

The Campaign Manager engages Free Press’ more than 1 million members, hundreds of allies and the broader public on issues within our portfolio focused on democracy and technology, including issues around the First Amendment, surveillance, and other topics. This position builds national and local ally relationships, executes creative tactics, and develops engagement strategies to advance our campaigns.

The Campaign Manager’s focus may shift or expand to different campaigns and issue areas over time, including our work on platform accountability, fighting disinformation and hate, media accountability, and other organizational priorities. This position currently focuses on corporate-accountability campaigns — putting pressure on media and tech companies to stop the spread of hate and disinformation, advance racial equity and serve the public interest — as well as legislative and regulatory campaigns to protect digital civil rights for all.

In collaboration with our campaign, communication, policy and cultural organizing staff, the Campaign Manager provides oversight, rapid response, coalition engagement, organizing and mobilization efforts and represents Free Press in public. They are responsible for fostering collaboration and communication internally and externally. The Campaign Manager develops and executes a range of campaign tactics and contributes to overall campaign development and strategy. The Campaign Manager must bring an intersectional approach to our work that includes a race, class and gender analysis in order to elevate the relevance of media justice and policy change. They pay attention to details and are able to manage all the little tasks that make campaigns effective and impactful.

The Campaign Manager reports to the Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights. This job requires flexibility in work schedule, generally aligning to U.S. East Coast business hours. Evening and weekend hours are required at times, especially to handle rapid response needs. May require frequent domestic travel, including multi-day trips.

Free Press is composed of two separate organizations, Free Press and Free Press Action Fund. Both entities share the same overall mission and employees will have time assigned to one or both entities. This job description refers collectively to the two organizations as “Free Press.”

Primary Responsibilities: 

Develop and lead winning campaigns: Anchor campaign planning, development and execution in collaboration with the Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights, Campaign Director, policy, communications and other programmatic staff. In addition, focus on identifying campaign opportunities, targets, asks, actions and follow-up. Develop issue area expertise on the organization’s core campaigns and bring an intersectional approach to our work that includes a race, class and gender analysis. 

Implement campaign tactics: Develop and execute a range of tactics including digital mobilization, content creation for emails, blog posts and op-eds, outreach and engagement with new and existing local and national allies, and creative stunts. This includes implementing organizing, power-building, culture-shift and advocacy efforts that engage new and existing supporters, coalition partners, allies, media makers, journalists and legislators, and that garner broad appeal and coverage of our work. In collaboration with the marketing and communications team, focus on growing our membership, deepening our engagement with activists and advancing our broader race equity goals. 

Coalition management and engagement: Manage coalitions to execute advocacy initiatives and other campaigns. Engage with allied organizations to cultivate relationships and partnerships with an emphasis on allies in the media justice, civil and human rights, pro-democracy and digital organizing spaces. Represent Free Press in coalition meetings, strategy sessions, actions and listservs. Anchor coalition discussions and strategy calls as needed. Serve as a Free Press spokesperson for the media, as well as at events such as rallies, protests, panels and in lobbying opportunities with policymakers.

Communicate policy positions: From highly technical to very general — to a wide range of audiences, including staff and allies, government decision-makers, press, and the general public. Participate in press briefings and assist with press releases and other public communications. Promote Free Press’ mission and policy positions through correspondence and meetings with policymakers and staff.

Content creation: Contribute to the creation of compelling public narratives and public-education materials for a variety of audiences to advance campaign objectives. Drafts compelling email alerts, social media posts, op-eds and other outreach materials to inspire people to take action on our campaigns. 

Advancing race equity: Clearly and consistently articulate an understanding of racial equity and structural racism and the centrality of this analysis to the work Free Press does and how we operate. Integrate that knowledge into work projects and interactions by addressing structural implications and disproportionate impacts of policies, activities and decisions on race, class, gender and other group identities within the context of job responsibilities and projects.

Evaluation and learning: Stay up to date on the latest advocacy and organizing strategies and trends that are impacting policy change to benefit public interests. Attend conferences and trainings as needed and report back to Free Press program staff.

You will thrive at Free Press if you bring

• Dedication to Free Press’ mission of fighting for everyone’s rights to connect and communicate, in addition to the overall success of the organization
• A commitment to racial equity and experience working with communities of color
• Value and respect for differences of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, ability and socioeconomic circumstance
• Creative self-starter energy and you thrive at working independently, with limited oversight to accomplish agreed upon objectives and evaluate results
• You’re also a team player with a low-ego approach to developing and maintaining collaborative relationships with both internal and external colleagues
• The ability to work under tight deadlines, navigate competing priorities, and effectively adjust work plans to respond to emergent challenges or opportunities
• Flexibility in work hours to meet work demands (i.e, after hours when appropriate)
• Creativity, strategic thinking, and a commitment to excellence in your work while managing multiple projects and understanding that long hours are occasionally required to meet deadlines
• You’re a problem solver that remains positive, tactful and composed under pressure
• You have excellent interpersonal communication skills
• You thrive in a predominately remote office environment, including working with an off-site manager, and you actively foster connection and community with colleagues located throughout the U.S.
• You adopt and maintain strong digital security practices
• And finally, you have great attention to detail

Experience and qualifications required to succeed in this position:

• No minimum education is required; a bachelor's degree may be an indicator of capacity for this position
• 4 years of directly relevant experience advocating for policy change as part of a nonprofit public interest organization or similar setting is required
• Experience working with, building and leading diverse winning coalitions
• Strong interest in media, technology and journalism issues and demonstrated experience working on those or similar issues
• Experience supervising volunteers or interns
• Experience leading successful organizing efforts with a combination of online and/or offline organizing, rapid-response work, volunteer engagement, political advocacy, training and reporting
• Must have strong communications skills including writing, editing, and public speaking
• Spanish language fluency is a plus

Compensation:

Free Press is committed to offering competitive pay and generous benefits, including

• Annual paid time off is a total of ten weeks, including vacation, health-care leave, holidays and two organization-wide week-long closures
• Group medical, dental and vision insurance
• Short- and long-term disability insurance
• Employer contribution to retirement plans (no matching required)
• Flexible health, commuter and dependent care spending accounts
• Paid family leave
• After 7 years of employment with Free Press, staff are eligible to apply for a paid two-month sabbatical
• Stipends for business use of personal phones and for home office locations 
• All employees receive computers and equipment necessary for the job
• A flexible, supportive work culture

This position is categorized as a “career level 2” position, in the context of five classifications at Free Press, ranging from coordinator to executive. 

The starting salary at Free Press for a Campaign Manager who meets the above qualifications is $75,000 - $82,500. Starting salary is based on the selected candidate’s qualifications and experience. To counter pay inequality and uphold internal parity, we use a nonnegotiable starting salary system, while benchmarking our pay to competitive markets in the nonprofit sector. 

Covid - 19 Safety:

All Free Press employees must be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus or have an approved medical or religious/ethical/moral accommodation.

Free Press is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

We value excellence and diversity in our workforce. People of color, women, people with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, gender-nonconforming and formerly incarcerated individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.

If you meet some of the qualifications above, we encourage you to apply or to reach out for more information. We know groups subjected to systemic oppression– including people of color, women, people from working class backgrounds, and people who identify as LGBTQ – are less likely to apply unless and until they meet every requirement for a job. Therefore, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other communities who are marginalized.

How to apply:

Complete our online application. Fully answering the application questions is an important part of the application process; 4-5 sentences in response to each question will help us understand your thinking.

Our hiring process includes an initial 20-30 minute interview with one staff person, one or two hour-long interviews with 3-4 staff members, and reference checks after the final interview.

We provide reasonable accommodations for the application, interview, or any other aspect of the employee selection process to applicants with disabilities. Please email amartyn@freepress.net to request an accommodation.

Key dates:

Applications submitted by Friday, June 14, 2024 will be reviewed with priority; applications submitted after that date will be reviewed on a rolling basis. This search will remain open until the position is filled. The ideal candidate will be available to begin work in August, 2024.